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India/Indian Empire
1858–1947
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem: God Save The Queen
The British Indian Empire, 1909The British Indian Empire, 1909
Status	British colony
Capital	Calcutta (1858 - 1912) New Delhi (1912 - 1947)
Common languages	Hindustani, English, Tamil and many others
Government	Monarchy
Emperor/Empress of India (1876-1947)
• 1858-1901	Victoria¹
• 1901-1910	Edward VII
• 1910-1936	George V
• 1936	Edward VIII
• 1936-1947	George VI
Viceroy²
• 1858-1862	The Viscount Canning
• 1862-1863	The 8th Earl of Elgin
• 1864-1869	Sir John Lawrence
• 1869-1872	The Earl of Mayo
• 1872-1876	The Lord Northbrook
•	The Lord Lytton
• 1880-1884	The Marquess of Ripon
• 1884-1888	The Earl of Dufferin
History
• Established	August 2 1858
• Disestablished	August 15 1947
Currency	British Indian rupee
ISO 3166 code	IN
Preceded by Succeeded by Company rule in India Mughal Empire Dominion of India Dominion of Pakistan Burma#Colonial era (1886-1948)
¹ Reigned as Empress of India from May 1, 1876, before that as Queen of the United Kingdom. ² Governor-General and Viceroy of India

History of South Asia
Outline Palaeolithic (2,500,000–250,000 BC) Madrasian culture Soanian culture Neolithic (10,800–3300 BC) Bhirrana culture (7570–6200 BC) Mehrgarh culture (7000–3300 BC) Edakkal culture (5000–3000 BC) Chalcolithic (3500–1500 BC) Anarta tradition (c. 3950–1900 BC) Ahar-Banas culture (3000–1500 BC) Pandu culture (1600–750 BC) Malwa culture (1600–1300 BC) Jorwe culture (1400–700 BC) Bronze Age (3300–1300 BC) Indus Valley Civilisation (3300–1300 BC)  – Early Harappan culture (3300–2600 BC)  – Mature Harappan culture (2600–1900 BC)  – Late Harappan culture (1900–1300 BC) Vedic Civilisation (2000–500 BC)  – Ochre Coloured Pottery culture (2000–1600 BC)  – Swat culture (1600–500 BC) Iron Age (1500–200 BC) Vedic Civilisation (1500–500 BC)  – Janapadas (1500–600 BC)  – Black and Red ware culture (1300–1000 BC)  – Painted Grey Ware culture (1200–600 BC)  – Northern Black Polished Ware (700–200 BC) Pradyota dynasty (799–684 BC) Haryanka dynasty (684–424 BC) Three Crowned Kingdoms (c. 600 BC – AD 1600) Maha Janapadas (c. 600–300 BC) Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC) Ror Dynasty (450 BC – 489 AD) Shaishunaga dynasty (424–345 BC) Nanda Empire (380–321 BC) Macedonian Empire (330–323 BC) Maurya Empire (321–184 BC) Seleucid India (312–303 BC) Sangam period (c. 300 BC – c. 300 AD) Pandya Empire (c. 300 BC – AD 1345) Chera Kingdom (c. 300 BC – AD 1102) Chola Empire (c. 300 BC – AD 1279) Pallava Empire (c. 250 AD – AD 800) Maha-Megha-Vahana Empire (c. 250 BC – c. AD 500) Parthian Empire (247 BC – AD 224) Middle Kingdoms (230 BC – AD 1206) Satavahana Empire (230 BC – AD 220) Kuninda Kingdom (200 BC – AD 300) Mitra Dynasty (c. 150 – c. 50 BC) Shunga Empire (185–73 BC) Indo-Greek Kingdom (180 BC – AD 10) Kanva Empire (75–26 BC) Indo-Scythian Kingdom (50 BC – AD 400) Indo-Parthian Kingdom (AD 21 – c. 130) Western Satrap Empire (AD 35–405 ) Kushan Empire (AD 60–240) Bharshiva Dynasty (170–350) Nagas of Padmavati (210–340) Sasanian Empire (224–651) Indo-Sassanid Kingdom (230–360) Vakataka Empire (c. 250 – c. 500) Kalabhras Empire (c. 250 – c. 600) Gupta Empire (280–550) Kadamba Empire (345–525) Western Ganga Kingdom (350–1000) Kamarupa Kingdom (350–1100) Vishnukundina Empire (420–624) Maitraka Empire (475–767) Huna Kingdom (475–576) Rai Kingdom (489–632) Kabul Shahi Empire (c. 500 – 1026) Chalukya Empire (543–753) Maukhari Empire (c. 550 – c. 700) Harsha Empire (606–647) Tibetan Empire (618–841) Eastern Chalukya Kingdom (624–1075) Rashidun Caliphate (632–661) Gurjara-Pratihara Empire (650–1036) Umayyad Caliphate (661–750) Mallabhum kingdom (694–1947) Bhauma-Kara Kingdom (736–916) Pala Empire (750–1174) Rashtrakuta Empire (753–982) Paramara Kingdom (800–1327) Yadava Empire (850–1334) Somavamshi Kingdom (882–1110) Chaulukya Kingdom (942–1244) Western Chalukya Empire (973–1189) Lohara Kingdom (1003–1320) Hoysala Empire (1040–1347) Sena Empire (1070–1230) Eastern Ganga Empire (1078–1434) Kakatiya Kingdom (1083–1323) Zamorin Kingdom (1102–1766) Kalachuris of Tripuri (675–1210) Kalachuris of Kalyani (1156–1184) Chutiya Kingdom (1187–1673) Deva Kingdom (c. 1200 – c. 1300) Late medieval period (1206–1526) Ghaznavid Dynasty (977–1186) Ghurid Dynasty (1170–1206) Delhi Sultanate (1206–1526)  – Mamluk Sultanate (1206–1290)  – Khalji Sultanate (1290–1320)  – Tughlaq Sultanate (1320–1414)  – Sayyid Sultanate (1414–1451)  – Lodi Sultanate (1451–1526) Ahom Kingdom (1228–1826) Chitradurga Kingdom (1300–1779) Reddy Kingdom (1325–1448) Vijayanagara Empire (1336–1646) Bengal Sultanate (1352–1576) Garhwal Kingdom (1358–1803) Mysore Kingdom (1399–1947) Gajapati Empire (1434–1541) Ladakh Kingdom (1470–1842) Deccan sultanates (1490–1596)  – Ahmadnagar Sultanate (1490–1636)  – Berar sultanate (1490–1574)  – Bidar Sultanate (1492–1619)  – Bijapur Sultanate (1492–1686)  – Golkonda Sultanate (1518–1687) Keladi Kingdom (1499–1763) Koch Kingdom (1515–1947) Early modern period (1526–1858) Mughal Empire (1526–1858) Sur Empire (1540–1556) Madurai Kingdom (1529–1736) Thanjavur Kingdom (1532–1673) Bhoi dynasty (1541–1804) Bengal Subah (1576–1757) Marava Kingdom (1600–1750) Sikkim Kingdom (1642–1975) Thondaiman Kingdom (1650–1948) Maratha Empire (1674–1818) Sikh Confederacy (1707–1799) Travancore Kingdom (1729–1947) Sikh Empire (1799–1849) Colonial states (1510–1961) Portuguese India (1510–1961) Dutch India (1605–1825) Danish India (1620–1869) French India (1759–1954) Company Raj (1757–1858) British Raj (1858–1947)
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v t e

British Raj (rāj, lit. "reign" in Hindustani), contemporaneously "British India", primarily refers to the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947. It can also refer to the region of the rule, or the period of dominion. The region, commonly called India in contemporary usage, included areas directly administered by the United Kingdom as well as the princely states ruled by individual rulers under the paramountcy of the British Crown. After 1876, the resulting political union was officially called the Indian Empire and passports were issued under that name. As India, it was a founding member of the League of Nations, and a member nation of the Summer Olympics in 1900, 1920, 1928, 1932, and 1936.

The system of governance was instituted in 1858, when the rule of the British East India Company was transferred to the British Crown in the person of Queen Victoria who was proclaimed Empress of India) in 1876. Victoria died in 1901, and the British Crown's reign in India lasted until 1947 when the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two sovereign dominion states, the Union of India (later the Republic of India) and the Dominion of Pakistan (later the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh).

Geographical extent of the Raj

The British Indian Empire included the regions of present-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. In addition, at various times, it included Aden Colony (from 1858 to 1937), Lower Burma (from 1858 to 1937), Upper Burma (from 1886 to 1937), British Somaliland (briefly from 1884 to 1898), and Singapore (briefly from 1858 to 1867). Burma was directly administered by the British Crown from 1937 until its independence in 1948.

Among other countries in the region, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), was ceded to the United Kingdom in 1802 under the Treaty of Amiens. Ceylon was a British Crown Colony, but not part of British India. The kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan, having fought wars with the British, subsequently signed treaties with them, were recognized by the British as independent states. The Kingdom of Sikkim was established as a princely state after the Anglo-Sikkimese Treaty of 1861. However, the issue of sovereignty was left undefined. The Maldive Islands were a British protectorate from 1867 to 1965, but not part of British India.

British India and the Native States

The British Indian Empire (contemporaneously India) consisted of two divisions: British India and the Native States or Princely States. In its Interpretation Act of 1889, the British Parliament adopted the following definitions:

The expression British India shall mean all territories and places within Her Majesty's dominions which are for the time being governed by Her Majesty through the Governor-General of India, or through any Governor or other officer subordinate to the Governor-General of India. The expression India shall mean British India together with any territories of an Native Prince or Chief under the suzerainty of Her Majesty, exercised through the Governor-General of India, or through any Governor or other officer subordinate to the Governor-General of India. (52 & 53 Vict. cap. 63, sec. 18)

Suzerainty over 175 Princely States, including some of the largest and most important, was exercised (in the name of the British Crown) by central government of British India under the Viceroy; the remaining, approximately 500, states were dependents of the provincial governments of British India under a Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, or Chief Commissioner (as the case might have been). A clear distinction between "dominion" and "suzerainty" was supplied by the jurisdiction of the courts of law: the law of British India rested upon the laws passed by the British Parliament and the legislative powers those laws vested in the various governments of British India, both central and local; in contrast, the courts of the Princely States existed under the authority of the respective rulers of those states.

Administrative Divisions of British India

Major Provinces

At the turn of the 20th century, British India consisted of eight provinces that were administered either by a Governor or a Lieutenant-Governor. The following table lists their areas and populations (but does not include those of the dependent Native States): During the partition of Bengal (1905–1911), a new province, Assam and East Bengal was created as a Lieutenant-Governorship. In 1911, East Bengal was reunited with Bengal, and the new provinces in the east became: Assam, Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.

Minor Provinces

In addition, there were a few minor provinces that were administered by a Chief Commissioner:

The Native States

The native states included five large states that were in "direct political relations" with the Government of India.

Under the Central Government

Four Large States

Central India Agency

Rajputana Agency

Baluchistan Agency

Under a Provincial Government

Burma (52 States)

Bengal (30 States)

Madras (5 States)

Bombay (354 States)

United Provinces (2 States)

Central Provinces (15 States)

Punjab (34 States)

Assam (26 States)

Organization of the British Raj

Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Act for the Better Government of India (1858) made changes in the governance of India at three levels: in the imperial government in London, in the central government in Calcutta, and in the provincial governments in the presidencies (and later in the provinces).

In London, it provided for a cabinet-level Secretary of State for India and a fifteen-member Council of India, whose members were required, as one prerequisite of membership, to have spent at least ten years in India and to have done so no more than ten years before. Although the Secretary of State formulated the policy instructions to be communicated to India, he was required in most instances to consult the Council, but especially so in matters relating to spending of Indian revenues. The Act envisaged a system of "double government" in which the Council ideally served both as a check on excesses in imperial policy-making and as a body of up-to-date expertise on India. However, the Secretary of State also had special emergency powers that allowed him to make unilateral decisions, and, in reality, the Council's expertise was sometimes outdated. From 1858 until 1947, twenty seven individuals would serve as Secretary of State for India and direct the India Office; these included: Sir Charles Wood (1859 - 1866) , Marquess of Salisbury (1874 - 1878) (later three-time Prime Minister of Britain), John Morley (1905 - 1910) (initiator of the Minto-Morley Reforms), E. S. Montagu (1917 - 1922) (an architect of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms), and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence (1945 - 1947) (head of the 1946 Cabinet Mission to India). The size of the advisory Council would be reduced over the next half-century, but its powers would remain unchanged; in 1907, for the first time, two Indians would be appointed to the Council.

In Calcutta, the Governor-General remained head of the Government of India and now was more commonly called the Viceroy on account of his secondary role as the Crown's representative to the nominally sovereign princely states; he was, however, now responsible to the Secretary of State in London and through him to British Parliament. A system of "double government" had already been in place in the East India Company rule in India from the time of Pitt's India Act of 1784. The Governor-General in the capital, Calcutta, and the Governor in a subordinate presidency (Madras or Bombay) was each required to consult his advisory council; executive orders in Calcutta, for example, were issued in the name of "Governor-General-in-Council" (i.e.the Governor-General with the advice of the Council). The Company's system of "double government" had its critics, since, from the time of the system's inception, there had been been intermittent feuding between the Governor-General and his Council; still, the Act of 1858 made no major changes in governance However, in the years immediately thereafter, which were also the years of post-rebellion reconstruction, the Viceroy Lord Canning found the collective decision-making of the Council to be too time-consuming for the pressing tasks ahead. He therefore requested the "portfolio system" of an Executive Council in which the business of each government department (the "portfolio") was assigned to and became the responsibility of a single Council member. Routine departmental decisions were made exclusively by the member, however, important decisions required the consent of the Governor-General and, in the absence such consent, required discussion by the entire Executive Council. This innovation in Indian governance was promulgated in the Indian Councils Act of 1861.

If the Government of India needed to enact new laws, the Councils Act allowed for a Legislative Council—an expansion of the Executive Council by up to twelve additional members, each appointed to a two-year term—with half the members consisting of British officials of the government (termed official) and allowed to vote, and the other half, comprising Indians and domiciled Britons in India (termed non-official) and serving only in an advisory capacity. All laws enacted by Legislative Councils in India, whether by the Imperial Legislative Council in Calcutta or by the provincial ones in Madras and Bombay, required the final assent of the Secretary of State in London; this prompted Sir Charles Wood, the second Secretary of State, to describe the Government of India as "a despotism controlled from home." Moreover, although the appointment of Indians to the Legislative Council was a response to calls after the 1857 rebellion, most notably by Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, for more consultation with Indians, the Indians so appointed were from the landed aristocracy, often chosen for their loyalty, and far from representative. Even so, the "tiny advances in the practise of representative government were intended to provide safety valves for the expression of public opinion which had been so badly misjudged before the rebellion." (Bayly 1990, p. 195 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBayly1990 (help)). Indian affairs now also came to be more closely examined in the British parliament and more widely discussed in the British press.

Although the Great Uprising of 1857 had shaken the British enterprise in India, it had not derailed it. After the rebellion, the British became more circumspect. Much thought was devoted to the causes of the rebellion, and from it three main lessons were drawn. At a more practical level, it was felt that there needed to be more communication and camaraderie between the British and Indians; not just between British army officers and their Indian staff, but in civilian life as well. The Indian army was completely reorganised: units composed of the Muslims and Brahmins of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, who had formed the core of the rebellion, were disbanded. New regiments, like the Sikhs and Baluchis, composed of Indians who, in British estimation, had demonstrated steadfastness, were formed. From then on, the Indian army was to remain unchanged in its organization until 1947.

It was also felt that both the princes and the large land-holders, by not joining the rebellion, had proved to be, in Lord Canning's words, "breakwaters in a storm." They too were rewarded in the new British Raj, by being officially recognised in the treaties each state now signed with the Crown. At the same time, it was felt that the peasants, for whose benefit the large land-reforms of the United Provinces had been undertaken, had shown disloyalty, by, in many cases, fighting for their former landlords against the British. Consequently, no more land reforms were implemented for the next 90 years: Bengal and Bihar were to remain the realms of large land holdings (unlike the Punjab and Uttar Pradesh).

Lastly, the British felt disenchanted with Indian reaction to social change. Until the rebellion, they had enthusiastically pushed through social reform, like the ban on suttee by Lord William Bentinck. It was now felt that traditions and customs in India were too strong and too rigid to be changed easily; consequently, no more British social interventions were made, especially in matters dealing with religion, even when the British felt very strongly about the issue (as in the instance of the remarriage of Hindu child widows).

Famines, Epidemics, and Public Health

A timeline

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History

Prelude: Company Rule in India

Although the British East India Company had administered its factory areas in India—beginning with Surat early in the 17th century, and including by the century's end, Fort William near Calcutta, Fort St George in Madras and the Bombay Castle—its victory in the Battle of Plassey in 1757 marked the real beginning of the Company rule in India. The victory was consolidated in 1764 at the Battle of Buxar (in Bihar), when the defeated Mughal emperor, Shah Alam II, granted the Company the Diwani ("right to collect land-revenue") in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. The Company soon expanded its territories around its bases in Bombay and Madras: the Anglo-Mysore Wars (1766–1799) and the Anglo-Maratha Wars (1772–1818) gave it control over most of India south of the Narmada River.

Earlier, in 1773, the British Parliament granted regulatory control over East India Company to the British government and established the post of Governor-General of India, with Warren Hastings as the first incumbent. In 1784, the British Parliament passed Pitt's India Act which created a Board of Control for overseeing the administration of East India Company. Hastings was succeeded in 1784 by Cornwallis, who promulgated the 'Permanent Settlement of Bengal' with the zamindars.

At the turn of the 19th century, Governor-General Wellesley began what became two decades of accelerated expansion of Company territories. This was achieved either by subsidiary alliances between the Company and local rulers or by direct military annexation. The subsidiary alliances created the Princely States (or Native States) of the Hindu Maharajas and the Muslim Nawabs, prominent among which were: Cochin (1791), Jaipur (1794), Travancore (1795), Hyderabad (1798), Mysore (1799), Cis-Sutlej Hill States (1815), Central India Agency (1819), Kutch and Gujarat Gaikwad territories (1819), Rajputana (1818), and Bahawalpur (1833). The annexed regions included the North Western Provinces (comprising Rohilkhand, Gorakhpur, and the Doab) (1801), Delhi (1803), and Sindh (1843). Punjab, Northwest Frontier Province, and Kashmir, were annexed after the Anglo-Sikh Wars in 1849; however, Kashmir was immediately sold under the Treaty of Amritsar (1850) to the Dogra Dynasty of Jammu, and thereby became a princely state. In 1854 Berar was annexed, and the state of Oudh two years later.

The East India Company also signed treaties with various Afghan rulers and with Ranjit Singh of Lahore to counterbalance the Russian support of Persia's plans in western Afghanistan. In 1839, the Company's effort to more actively support Shah Shuja as Amir in Afghanistan, led to the First Afghan War (1839-42) and resulted in a military disaster for it. As the British expanded their territory in India, so did Russia in Central Asia with the taking of Bukhara and Samarkand in 1863 and 1868 respectively, and thereby setting the stage for The Great Game of Central Asia.

In the Charter Act of 1813, the British parliament renewed the Company's charter but terminated its monopoly, opening India to both private investment and missionary work. With increased British power in India, supervision of Indian affairs by the British Crown and parliament increased as well; by the 1820s, British nationals could transact business under the protection of the Crown in the three Company presidencies. In the Charter Act of 1833, the British parliament revoked the Company's trade license altogether, making the Company a part of British governance, although the administration of British India remained the province of Company officers.

Starting in 1772, the Company began a series of land revenue "settlements," which would create major changes in landed rights and rural economy in India. In 1793, the Governor-General Lord Cornwallis promulgated the permanent settlement in the Bengal Presidency, the first socio-economic regulation in colonial India. It was named permanent because it fixed the land tax in perpetuity in return for landed property rights for a class of intermediaries called zamindars, who thereafter became owners of the land. It was hoped that knowledge of a fixed government demand would encourage the zamindars to increase both their average outcrop and the land under cultivation, since they would be able to retain the profits from the increased output; in addition, the land itself would become a marketable form of property that could be purchased, sold, or mortgaged. However, the zamindars themselves were often unable to meet the increased demands that the Company had placed on them; consequently, many defaulted, and by one estimate, up to one-third of their lands were auctioned during the first three decades following the permanent settlement. In southern India, Thomas Munro, who would later become Governor of Madras, promoted the ryotwari system, in which the government settled land-revenue directly with the peasant farmers, or ryots. Based on the utilitarian ideas of James Mill, who supervised the Company's land revenue policy during 1819-1830, and David Ricardo's Law of Rent, it was considered by its supporters to be both closer to traditional practice and more progressive, allowing the benefits of Company rule to reach the lowest levels of rural society. However, in spite of the appeal of the ryotwari system's abstract principles, class hierarchies in southern Indian villages had not entirely disappeared—for example village headmen continued to hold sway—and peasant cultivators came to experience revenue demands they could not meet.

Land revenue settlements constituted a major administrative activity of the various governments in India under Company rule. In all areas other than the Bengal Presidency, land settlement work involved a continually repetitive process of surveying and measuring plots, assessing their quality, and recording landed rights, and constituted a large proportion of the work of Indian Civil Service officers working for the government. After the Company lost its trading rights, it became the single most important source of government revenue, roughly half of overall revenue in the middle of the 19th century. Since, in many regions, the land tax assessment could be revised, and since it was generally computed at a high level, it created lasting resentment which would later come to a head in the rebellion which rocked much of North India in 1857.

Indian Rebellion of 1857

The rebellion began with mutinies by sepoys of the Bengal Presidency army; in 1857 the presidency consisted of present-day Bangladesh, and the Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar and UP. However, most rebel soldiers were from the UP region, and, in particular, from Northwest Provinces (especially, Ganga-Jumna Doab) and Oudh, and many came from landowning families. Within weeks of the initial mutinies—as the rebel soldiers wrested control of many urban garrisons from the British—the rebellion was joined by various discontented groups in the hinterlands, in both farmed areas and the backwoods. The latter group, forming the civilian rebellion, consisted of feudal nobility, landlords, peasants, rural merchants, and some tribal groups.

After the annexation of Oudh by the East India Company in 1856, many sepoys were disquieted both from losing their perquisites as landed gentry in the Oudh courts and from the anticipation of any increased land-revenue payments that the annexation might augur. Some Indian soldiers, misreading the presence of missionaries as a sign of official intent, were persuaded that the East India Company was masterminding mass conversions of Hindus and Muslims to Christianity. Changes in the terms of their professional service may also have created resentment. As the extent of British jurisdiction expanded with British victories in wars and with annexation of territory, the soldiers were now not only expected to serve in less familiar regions (such as Lower Burma after the Second Burmese War in 1852-53), but also make do without the "foreign service," remuneration that had previously been their due.

The civilian rebellion was more multifarious in origin. The rebels consisted of three groups: feudal nobility, rural landlords called taluqdars, and the peasants. The nobility, many of whom had lost titles and domains under the Doctrine of Lapse, which derecognised adopted children of princes as legal heirs, felt that the British had interfered with a traditional system of inheritance. Rebel leaders such as Nana Sahib and the Rani of Jhansi belonged to this group; the latter, for example, was prepared to accept British paramountcy if her adopted son was recognized as the heir. The second group, the taluqdars had lost half their landed estates to peasant farmers as a result of the land reforms that came in the wake of annexation of Oudh. As the rebellion gained ground, the taluqdars quickly reoccupied the lands they had lost, and paradoxically, in part due to ties of kinship and feudal loyalty, did not experience significant opposition from the peasant farmers, many of whom too now joined the rebellion to the great dismay of the British. Heavy land-revenue assessment in some areas by the British may have resulted in many landowning families either losing their land or going into great debt with money lenders, and providing ultimately a reason to rebel; money lenders, in addition to the British, were particular objects of the rebels' animosity. The civilian rebellion was also highly uneven in its geographic distribution, even in areas of north-central India that were no longer under British control. For example, the relatively prosperous Muzaffarnagar district, a beneficiary of a British irrigation scheme, and next door to Meerut where the upheaval began, stayed mostly calm throughout.

Effects on economy

"A significant fact which stands out is that those parts of India which have been longest under British rule are the poorest today. Indeed some kind of chart might be drawn up to indicate the close connection between length of British rule and progressive growth of poverty."

In the second half of the 19th century, both the direct administration of India by the British crown and the technological change ushered in by the industrial revolution, had the effect of closely intertwining the economies of India and Great Britain. In fact many of the major changes in transport and communications (that are typically associated with Crown Rule of India) had already begun before the Mutiny. Since Dalhousie had embraced the technological change then rampant in Great Britain, India too saw rapid development of all those technologies. Railways, roads, canals, and bridges were rapidly built in India and telegraph links equally rapidly established in order that raw materials, such as cotton, from India's hinterland could be transported more efficiently to ports, such as Bombay, for subsequent export to England. Likewise, finished goods from England were transported back just as efficiently, for sale in the burgeoning Indian markets. However, unlike Britain itself, where the market risks for the infrastructure development were borne by private investors, in India, it was the taxpayers—primarily farmers and farm-labourers—who endured the risks, which, in the end, amounted to £50 million. In spite of these costs, very little skilled employment was created for Indians. By 1920, with the fourth largest railway network in the world and a history of 60 years of its construction, only ten per cent of the "superior posts" in the Indian Railways were held by Indians. The Indian railways system, by 1900, provided India with social savings of 9% of India's national income (about 1.2 billion rupees).

The rush of technology was also changing the agricultural economy in India: by the last decade of the 19th century, a large fraction of some raw materials—not only cotton, but also some food-grains—were being exported to faraway markets. Consequently, many small farmers, dependent on the whims of those markets, lost land, animals, and equipment to money-lenders.. More tellingly, the latter half of the 19th century also saw an increase in the number of large-scale famines in India. Although famines were not new to the subcontinent, these were particularly severe, with tens of millions dying, and with many critics, both British and Indian, laying the blame at the doorsteps of the lumbering colonial administrations.

Taxes in India decreased during the colonial period for most of India's population; with the land tax revenue claiming 15% of India's national income during Mogul times compared with 1% at the end of the colonial period. The percentage of national income for the village economy increased from 44% during Mogul times to 54% by the end of colonial period. India's per capita GDP decreased from $550 in 1700 to $520 by 1857, although it had increased to $618 by 1947

Beginnings of self-government

The first steps were taken toward self-government in British India in the late 19th century with the appointment of Indian counsellors to advise the British viceroy and the establishment of provincial councils with Indian members; the British subsequently widened participation in legislative councils with the Indian Councils Act of 1892. Municipal Corporations and District Boards were created for local administration; they included elected Indian members.

The Government of India Act of 1909 — also known as the Morley-Minto Reforms (John Morley was the secretary of state for India, and Gilbert Elliot, fourth earl of Minto, was viceroy) — gave Indians limited roles in the central and provincial legislatures, known as legislative councils. Indians had previously been appointed to legislative councils, but after the reforms some were elected to them. At the centre, the majority of council members continued to be government-appointed officials, and the viceroy was in no way responsible to the legislature. At the provincial level, the elected members, together with unofficial appointees, outnumbered the appointed officials, but responsibility of the governor to the legislature was not contemplated. Morley made it clear in introducing the legislation to the British Parliament that parliamentary self-government was not the goal of the British government.

The Morley-Minto Reforms were a milestone. Step by step, the elective principle was introduced for membership in Indian legislative councils. The "electorate" was limited, however, to a small group of upper-class Indians. These elected members increasingly became an "opposition" to the "official government". The Communal electorates were later extended to other communities and made a political factor of the Indian tendency toward group identification through religion.

World War I and its aftermath

World War I would prove to be a watershed in the imperial relationship between Britain and India. 1.4 million Indian and British soldiers of the British Indian Army would take part in the war and their participation would have a wider cultural fallout: news of Indian soldiers fighting and dying with British soldiers, as well as soldiers from dominions like Canada and Australia, would travel to distant corners of the world both in newsprint and by the new medium of the radio. India’s international profile would thereby rise and would continue to rise during the 1920s. It was to lead, among other things, to India, under its own name, becoming a founding member of the League of Nations in 1920 and participating, under the name, "Les Indes Anglaises" (The British Indies), in the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp. Back in India, especially among the leaders of the Indian National Congress, it would lead to calls for greater self-government for Indians.

In 1916, in the face of new strength demonstrated by the moderate nationalists with the signing of the Lucknow Pact and the founding of the Home Rule leagues, and the realization, after the disaster in the Mesopotamian campaign, that the war would likely last longer, the new Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, cautioned that the Government of India needed to be more responsive to Indian opinion. Towards the end of the year, after discussions with the government in London, he suggested that the British demonstrate their good faith – in light of the Indian war role – through a number of public actions, including awards of titles and honors to princes, granting of commissions in the army to Indians, and removal of the much-reviled cotton excise duty, but most importantly, an announcement of Britain's future plans for India and an indication of some concrete steps. After more discussion, in August 1917, the new Liberal Secretary of State for India, Edwin Montagu, announced the British aim of “increasing association of Indians in every branch of the administration, and the gradual development of self-governing institutions, with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire.” Although the plan envisioned limited self-government at first only in the provinces – with India emphatically within the British Empire – it represented the first British proposal for any form of representative government in a non-white colony.

Earlier, at the onset of World War I, the reassignment of most of the British army in India to Europe and Mesopotamia had led the previous Viceroy, Lord Harding, to worry about the “risks involved in denuding India of troops.” Revolutionary violence had already been a concern in British India, and outlines of collaboration with Germany were being identified by British intelligence; consequently in 1915, to strengthen its powers during what it saw was a time of increased vulnerability, the Government of India passed the Defence of India Act, which allowed it to intern politically dangerous dissidents without due process and added to the power it already had – under the 1910 Press Act – both to imprison journalists without trial and to censor the press. Now, as constitutional reform began to be discussed in earnest, the British began to consider how new moderate Indians could be brought into the fold of constitutional politics and simultaneously, how the hand of established constitutionalists could be strengthened. However, since the Government of India wanted to check the revolutionary problem, and since its reform plan was devised during a time when extremist violence had ebbed as a result of increased governmental control, it also began to consider how some of its war-time powers could be extended into peace time.

Consequently in 1917, even as Edwin Montagu announced the new constitutional reforms, a sedition committee chaired by a British judge, Mr. S. A. T. Rowlatt, was tasked with investigating revolutionary conspiracies and the German and Bolshevik links to the violence in India, with the unstated goal of extending the government's war-time powers. The Rowlatt committee presented its report in July 1918 and identified three regions of conspiratorial insurgency: Bengal, the Bombay presidency, and the Punjab. To combat subversive acts in these regions, the committee recommended that the government use emergency powers akin to its war-time authority, which included the ability to try cases of sedition by a panel of three judges and without juries, exaction of securities from suspects, governmental overseeing of residences of suspects, and the power for provincial governments to arrest and detain suspects in short-term detention facilities and without trial.

With the end of World War I, there was also a change in the economic climate. By year’s end 1919, 1.5 million Indians had served in the armed services in either combatant or non-combatant roles, and India had provided £146 million in revenue for the war. The increased taxes coupled with disruptions in both domestic and international trade had the effect of approximately doubling the index of overall prices in India between 1914 and 1920. Returning war veterans, especially in the Punjab, created a growing unemployment crisis and post-war inflation led to food riots in Bombay, Madras, and Bengal provinces, a situation that was made only worse by the failure of the 1918-19 monsoon and by profiteering and speculation. The global influenza epidemic and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 added to the general jitters; the former among the population already experiencing economic woes, and the latter among government officials, fearing a similar revolution in India.

To combat what it saw as a coming crisis, the government now drafted the Rowlatt committee's recommendations into two Rowlatt Bills. Although the bills were authorised for legislative consideration by Edwin Montagu, they were done so unwillingly, with the accompanying declaration, “I loathe the suggestion at first sight of preserving the Defence of India Act in peace time to such an extent as Rowlatt and his friends think necessary.” In the ensuing discussion and vote in the Imperial Legislative Council, all Indian members voiced opposition to the bills. The Government of India was nevertheless able to use of its "official majority" to ensure passage of the bills early in 1919. However, what it passed, in deference to the Indian opposition, was a lesser version of the first bill, which now allowed extra-judicial powers, but for a period of exactly three years and for the prosecution solely of “anarchical and revolutionary movements,” dropping entirely the second bill involving modification of the Indian Penal Code. Even so, when it was passed the new Rowlatt Act aroused widespread indignation throughout India and brought Mohandas Gandhi to the forefront of the nationalist movement.

Meanwhile, Montagu and Chelmsford themselves finally presented their report in July 1918 after a long fact-finding trip through India the previous winter. After more discussion by the government and parliament in Britain, and another tour by the Franchise and Functions Committee for the purpose of identifying who among the Indian population could vote in future elections, the Government of India Act of 1919 (also known as the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms) was passed in December 1919. The new Act enlarged both the provincial and Imperial legislative councils and repealed the Government of India’s recourse to the “official majority” in unfavorable votes. Although departments like defense, foreign affairs, criminal law, communications and income-tax were retained by the Viceroy and the central government in New Delhi, other departments like public health, education, land-revenue and local self-government were transferred to the provinces. The provinces themselves were now to be administered under a new dyarchical system, whereby some areas like education, agriculture, infrastructure development, and local self-government became the preserve of Indian ministers and legislatures, and ultimately the Indian electorates, while others like irrigation, land-revenue, police, prisons, and control of media remained within the purview of the British governor and his executive council. The new Act also made it easier for Indians to be admitted into the civil service and the army officer corps.

A greater number of Indians were now enfranchised, although, for voting at the national level, they constituted only 10% of the total adult male population, many of whom were still illiterate. In the provincial legislatures, the British continued to exercise some control by setting aside seats for special interests they considered cooperative or useful. In particular, rural candidates, generally sympathetic to British rule and less confrontational, were assigned more seats than their urban counterparts. Seats were also reserved for non-Brahmins, landowners, businessmen, and college graduates. The principal of “communal representation,” an integral part of the Minto-Morley reforms, and more recently of the Congress-Muslim League Lucknow Pact, was reaffirmed, with seats being reserved for Muslims, Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians, and domiciled Europeans, in both provincial and Imperial legislative councils. The Montagu-Chelmsford reforms offered Indians the most significant opportunity yet for exercising legislative power, especially at the provincial level; however, that opportunity was also restricted by the still limited number of eligible voters, by the small budgets available to provincial legislatures, and by the presence of rural and special interest seats that were seen as instruments of British control. It scope was however, servely dissatisfactory to the Indian political leadership, famously expressed by Annie Beasant as something "unworthy of England to offer and India to accept"

1930s: Government of India Act (1935)

In 1935, after the Round Table Conferences, the British Parliament approved the Government of India Act of 1935, which authorised the establishment of independent legislative assemblies in all provinces of British India, the creation of a central government incorporating both the British provinces and the princely states, and the protection of Muslim minorities. The future Constitution of independent India would owe a great deal to the text of this act. The act also provided for a bicameral national parliament and an executive branch under the purview of the British government. Although the national federation was never realised, nationwide elections for provincial assemblies were held in 1937. Despite initial hesitation, the Congress took part in the elections and won victories in seven of the eleven provinces of British India, and Congress governments, with wide powers, were formed in these provinces. In Great Britain, these victories were to later turn the tide for the idea of Indian independence.

World War II

With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, declared war on India’s behalf without consulting Indian leaders, leading the Congress provincial ministries to resign in protest. The Muslim League, in contrast, supported Britain in the war effort; however, it now took the view that Muslims would be unfairly treated in an independent India dominated by the Congress. The British government—through its Cripps' mission—attempted to secure Indian nationalists' cooperation in the war effort in exchange for independence afterwards; however, the negotiations between them and the Congress broke down. Gandhi, subsequently, launched the “Quit India” movement in August 1942, demanding the immediate withdrawal of the British from India or face nationwide civil disobedience. Along with all other Congress leaders, Gandhi was immediately imprisoned, and the country erupted in violent demonstrations led by students and later by peasant political groups, especially in Eastern United Provinces, Bihar, and western Bengal. The large war-time British Army presence in India led to most of the movement being crushed in a little more than six weeks; nonetheless, a portion of the movement formed for a time an underground provisional government on the border with Nepal. In other parts of India, the movement was less spontaneous and the protest less intensive, however it lasted sporadically into the summer of 1943.

With Congress leaders in jail, attention also turned to Subhas Bose, who had been ousted from the Congress in 1939 following differences with the more conservative high command; Bose now turned to the Axis powers for help with liberating India by force. With Japanese support, he organised the Indian National Army, composed largely of Indian soldiers of the British Indian army who had been captured at Singapore by the Japanese. From the onset of the war, the Japanese secret service had promoted unrest in South east Asia to destabilise the British War effort, and came to support a number of puppet and provisional governments in the captured regions, including those in Burma, the Philippines and Vietnam, the Provisional Government of Azad Hind (Free India), presided by Bose. Bose's effort, however, was short lived; after the reverses of 1944, the reinforced British Indian Army in 1945 first halted and then reversed the Japanese U Go offensive, beginning the successful part of the Burma Campaign. Bose's Indian National Army surrendered with the recapture of Singapore, and Bose died in a plane crash soon thereafter. The trials of the INA soldiers at Red Fort in late 1945 however caused widespread public unrest and nationalist violence in India.

Post-war developments: transfer of power

In January 1946, a number of mutinies broke out in the armed services, starting with that of RAF servicemen frustrated with their slow repatriation to Britain. The mutinies came to a head with mutiny of the Royal Indian Navy in Bombay in February 1946, followed by others in Calcutta, Madras, and Karachi. Although these latter mutinies were rapidly suppressed, they found much public support in India then gripped by the Red Fort Trials, and had the effect of spurring the new Labour government in Britain to action, and leading to the Cabinet Mission to India led by the Secretary of State for India, Lord Pethick Lawrence, and including Sir Stafford Cripps, who had visited four years before.

Also in early 1946, new elections were called in India in which the Congress won electoral victories in eight of the eleven provinces. The negotiations between the Congress and the Muslim League, however, stumbled over the issue of the partition. Jinnah proclaimed August 16, 1946, Direct Action Day, with the stated goal of highlighting, peacefully, the demand for a Muslim homeland in British India. The following day Hindu-Muslim riots broke out in Calcutta and quickly spread throughout India. Although the Government of India and the Congress were both shaken by the course of events, in September, a Congress-led interim government was installed, with Jawaharlal Nehru as united India’s prime minister.

Later that year, the Labour government in Britain, its exchequer exhausted by the recently concluded World War II, and conscious it had not the military means of controlling civil unrest in India, decided to end British rule of India, and in early 1947 Britain announced its intention of transferring power no later than June 1948.

As independence approached, the violence between Hindus and Muslims in the provinces of Punjab and Bengal continued unabated. With the British army unprepared for the potential for increased violence, the new viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, advanced the date for the transfer of power, allowing less than six months for a mutually agreed plan for independence. In June 1947, the nationalist leaders, including Nehru and Abul Kalam Azad on behalf of the Congress, Jinnah representing the Muslim League, B. R. Ambedkar representing the Untouchable community, and Master Tara Singh representing the Sikhs, agreed to a partition of the country along religious lines. The predominantly Hindu and Sikh areas were assigned to the new India and predominantly Muslim areas to the new nation of Pakistan; the plan included a partition of the Muslim-majority provinces of Punjab and Bengal.

Many millions of Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu refugees trekked across the newly drawn borders. In Punjab, where the new border lines divided the Sikh regions in half, massive bloodshed followed; in Bengal and Bihar, where Gandhi's presence assuaged communal tempers, the violence was more limited. In all, anywhere between 250,000 and 500,000 people on both sides of the new borders died in the violence. On August 14, 1947, the new Dominion of Pakistan came into being, with Muhammad Ali Jinnah sworn in as its first Governor General in Karachi. The following day, August 15, 1947, India, now a smaller Union of India, became an independent country with official ceremonies taking place in New Delhi, and with Jawaharlal Nehru assuming the office of the prime minister, and the viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, staying on as its first Governor General.

See also

• British rule in India for other periods when parts of India were under British rule.
• Colonial India
• Indian independence movement
• Anglo-Indian
• Anglo-Burmese people
• British Empire
• Imperialism in Asia
• India Office
• List of Indian Princely States
• Governor-General of India
• Commander-in-Chief of India
• Indian Civil Service

Notes

1. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989: from Skr. rāj: to reign, rule; cognate with L. rēx, rēg-is, OIr. rī, rīg king (see RICH).
2. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989. "b. spec. the British dominion or rule in the Indian sub-continent (before 1947). In full, British raj.
3. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989. Examples: 1955 Times 25 Aug. 9/7 It was effective against the British raj in India, and the conclusion drawn here is that the British knew that they were wrong. 1969 R. MILLAR Kut xv. 288 Sir Stanley Maude had taken command in Mesopotamia, displacing the raj of antique Indian Army commanders. 1975 H. R. ISAACS in H. M. Patel et al. Say not the Struggle Nought Availeth 251 The post-independence régime in all its incarnations since the passing of the British Raj.
4. First the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland then, after 1927, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
5. "Nepal." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008.
6. "Bhutan." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008.
7. "Sikkim." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 5 Aug 2007 <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-46212>.
8. Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, pp. 59–60 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFImperial_Gazetteer_of_India_vol._IV1907 (help)
9. ^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 60 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFImperial_Gazetteer_of_India_vol._IV1907 (help)
10. ^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 46 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFImperial_Gazetteer_of_India_vol._IV1907 (help)
11. ^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 56 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFImperial_Gazetteer_of_India_vol._IV1907 (help)
12. Cite error: The named reference igi-92 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
13. Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 93 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFImperial_Gazetteer_of_India_vol._IV1907 (help)
14. Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, pp. 94–95 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFImperial_Gazetteer_of_India_vol._IV1907 (help)
15. ^ Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 96 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFImperial_Gazetteer_of_India_vol._IV1907 (help)
16. Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 101 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFImperial_Gazetteer_of_India_vol._IV1907 (help)
17. Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 98 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFImperial_Gazetteer_of_India_vol._IV1907 (help)
18. Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 97 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFImperial_Gazetteer_of_India_vol._IV1907 (help)
19. Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 99 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFImperial_Gazetteer_of_India_vol._IV1907 (help)
20. Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 102 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFImperial_Gazetteer_of_India_vol._IV1907 (help)
21. Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 100 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFImperial_Gazetteer_of_India_vol._IV1907 (help)
22. Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 103 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFImperial_Gazetteer_of_India_vol._IV1907 (help)
23. ^ Moore 2001a, pp. 424–426 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMoore2001a (help)
24. Moore 2001a, p. 424 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMoore2001a (help)
25. Brown 1994, p. 96 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBrown1994 (help)
26. ^ Moore 2001a, p. 426 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMoore2001a (help)
27. Moore 2001a, p. 426 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMoore2001a (help), Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 104 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMetcalfMetcalf2006 (help)
28. Quoted in Moore 2001a, p. 426 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMoore2001a (help)
29. Peers 2006, p. 76 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFPeers2006 (help), Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 104 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMetcalfMetcalf2006 (help), Spear 1990, p. 149 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSpear1990 (help)
30. Peers 2006, p. 72 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFPeers2006 (help), Bayly 1990, p. 72 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBayly1990 (help)
31. ^ Spear 1990, p. 147 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSpear1990 (help)
32. ^ Spear 1990, pp. 147–148 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSpear1990 (help)
33. The Regulating Act - 1773
34. ^ Ludden 2002, p. 133 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFLudden2002 (help)
35. Ludden 2002, p. 135 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFLudden2002 (help)
36. Ludden 2002, p. 134 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFLudden2002 (help)
37. ^ Robb 2004, pp. 126–129 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFRobb2004 (help)
38. ^ Peers 2006, pp. 45–47 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFPeers2006 (help) Cite error: The named reference "peers47" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
39. Tomlinson 1993, p. 43 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFTomlinson1993 (help)
40. Peers 2006, p. 47 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFPeers2006 (help), Brown 1994, p. 65 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBrown1994 (help)
41. ^ Brown 1994, p. 67 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBrown1994 (help)
42. Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 79 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMetcalfMetcalf2006 (help)
43. Bandyopadhyay 2004, pp. 169–172 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBandyopadhyay2004 (help) Bose & Jalal 2003, pp. 88–103 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBoseJalal2003 (help) Quote: "The 1857 rebellion was by and large confined to northern Indian Gangetic Plain and central India.", Brown 1994, pp. 85–87 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBrown1994 (help), and Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, pp. 100–106 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMetcalfMetcalf2006 (help)
44. Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 101 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMetcalfMetcalf2006 (help)
45. Brown 1994, p. 88 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBrown1994 (help)
46. Metcalf 1991, p. 48 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMetcalf1991 (help)
47. Bandyopadhyay 2004, p. 171 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBandyopadhyay2004 (help), Bose & Jalal 2003, p. 90 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBoseJalal2003 (help)
48. Bandyopadhyay 2004, p. 172 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBandyopadhyay2004 (help), Bose & Jalal 2003, p. 91 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBoseJalal2003 (help), Brown 1994, p. 92 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBrown1994 (help)
49. Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 102 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMetcalfMetcalf2006 (help)
50. Bose & Jalal 2003, p. 91 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBoseJalal2003 (help), Metcalf 1991 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMetcalf1991 (help), Bandyopadhyay 2004, p. 173 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBandyopadhyay2004 (help)
51. Brown 1994, p. 92 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBrown1994 (help)
52. Nehru 1946, p. 295 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFNehru1946 (help)
53. (Stein 2001, p. 259) harv error: no target: CITEREFStein2001 (help), (Oldenburg 2007) harv error: no target: CITEREFOldenburg2007 (help)
54. (Oldenburg 2007) harv error: no target: CITEREFOldenburg2007 (help), (Stein 2001, p. 258) harv error: no target: CITEREFStein2001 (help)
55. ^ (Oldenburg 2007) harv error: no target: CITEREFOldenburg2007 (help)
56. (Stein 2001, p. 258) harv error: no target: CITEREFStein2001 (help)
57. (Stein 2001, p. 159) harv error: no target: CITEREFStein2001 (help)
58. Ian J. Kerr, Engines of Change: The Railroads that Made India, page 9 (2006)
59. ^ (Stein 2001, p. 260) harv error: no target: CITEREFStein2001 (help)
60. (Bose & Jalal 2003, p. 117) harv error: no target: CITEREFBoseJalal2003 (help)
61. Angus Maddison, The World Economy, pages 109-112, (2001)
62. ^ Brown 1994, pp. 197–198 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBrown1994 (help)
63. Olympic Games Antwerp 1920: Official Report, Nombre de bations representees, p. 168. Quote: "31 Nations avaient accepté l'invitation du Comité Olympique Belge: ... la Grèce - la Hollande Les Indes Anglaises - l'Italie - le Japon ..."
64. ^ Brown 1994, pp. 203–204 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBrown1994 (help)
65. ^ Brown 1994, pp. 201–203 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBrown1994 (help)
66. Lovett 1920, p. 94, 187-191 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFLovett1920 (help)
67. Sarkar 1921, p. 137 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSarkar1921 (help)
68. Tinker 1968, p. 92 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFTinker1968 (help)
69. ^ Spear 1990, p. 190 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSpear1990 (help)
70. ^ Brown 1994, pp. 195–196 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBrown1994 (help)
71. ^ Stein 2001, p. 304 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFStein2001 (help)
72. Ludden 2002, p. 208 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFLudden2002 (help)
73. ^ Brown 1994, pp. 205–207 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBrown1994 (help)
74. Chhabra 2005, p. 2 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFChhabra2005 (help)
75. (Low 1993, pp. 40, 156) harv error: no target: CITEREFLow1993 (help)
76. ^ (Low 1993, p. 154) harv error: no target: CITEREFLow1993 (help)
77. ^ (Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, pp. 206–207) harv error: no target: CITEREFMetcalfMetcalf2006 (help)
78. Bandyopadhyay 2004, pp. 418–420 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBandyopadhyay2004 (help)
79. Nehru 1942, p. 424 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFNehru1942 (help)
80. (Low 1993, pp. 31–31) harv error: no target: CITEREFLow1993 (help)
81. Lebra 1977, p. 23 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFLebra1977 (help)
82. Lebra 1977, p. 31 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFLebra1977 (help), (Low 1993, pp. 31–31) harv error: no target: CITEREFLow1993 (help)
83. Chaudhuri 1953, p. 349 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFChaudhuri1953 (help), Sarkar 1983, p. 411 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSarkar1983 (help),Hyam 2007, p. 115 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFHyam2007 (help)
84. ^ (Judd 2004, pp. 172–173) harv error: no target: CITEREFJudd2004 (help)
85. (Judd 2004, p. 172) harv error: no target: CITEREFJudd2004 (help)
86. Hyam 2007, p. 106 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFHyam2007 (help) Quote:By the end of 1945, he and the Commander-in-chief, General Auckinleck were advising that there was a real threat in 1946 of large scale anti-British Disorder amounting to even a well-organised rising aiming to expel the British by paralysing the administration.
    Quote:...it was clear to Atlee that everything depended on the spirit and reliabillity of the Indian Army:"Provided that they do their duty, armed insurrection in India would not be an insolube problem. If, however, the Indian Army was to go the other way, the picture would be very different...
    Quote:...Thus, Wavell concluded,if the army and the police "failed" Britain would be forced to go. In theory, it might be possible to revive and reinvigorate the services, and rule for another fifteent to trwenty years, but:It is a fallacy to suppose that the solution lies in trying to maintain status quo. We have no longer the resources, nor the neccessary prestige or confidence in ourselves.
87. Brown 1994, p. 330 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFBrown1994 (help) Quote: "India had always been a minority interest in British public life; no great body of public opinion now emerged to argue that war-weary and impoverished Britain should send troops and money to hold it against its will in an empire of doubtful value. By late 1946 both Prime Minister and Secretary of State for India recognized that neither international opinion no their own voters would stand for any reassertion of the raj, even if there had been the men, money, and administrative machinery with which to do so." Sarkar 1983, p. 418 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFSarkar1983 (help) Quote: "With a war weary army and people and a ravaged economy, Britain would have had to retreat; the Labour victory only quickened the process somewhat." Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 212 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMetcalfMetcalf2006 (help) Quote: "More importantly, though victorious in war, Britain had suffered immensely in the struggle. It simply did not possess the manpower or economic resources required to coerce a restive India."
88. (Khosla 2001, p. 299) harv error: no target: CITEREFKhosla2001 (help)

References

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Monographs and Collections

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• Gilmartin, David. 1988. Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan. Berkeley: University of California Press. 258 pages. ISBN 0520062493.
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• Shaikh, Farzana. 1989. Community and Consensus in Islam: Muslim Representation in Colonial India, 1860—1947. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 272 pages. ISBN 0521363284.
• Talbot, Ian and Gurharpal Singh (eds). 1999. Region and Partition: Bengal, Punjab and the Partition of the Subcontinent. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 420 pages. ISBN 0195790510.
• Talbot, Ian. 2002. Khizr Tiwana: The Punjab Unionist Party and the Partition of India. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 216 pages. ISBN 0195795512.
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Articles in Journals or Collections

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Classic Histories and Gazetteers

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Tertiary Sources

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Related Reading

• Bairoch, Paul, Economics and World History, University of Chicago Press, 1995
• Bhatia, B. M., Famines in India: A study in Some Aspects of the Economic History of India with Special Reference to Food Problem, Delhi: Konark Publishers Pvt. Ltd, 1985
• Bowle, John, The Imperial Achievement, Secker & Warburg, London, 1974, ISBN-13: 978-0316104098
• Coates, Tim, (series editor), The Amritsar Massacre 1919 - General Dyer in the Punjab (Official Reports, including Dyer's Testimonies), Her Majesty's Stationary Office (HMSO) 1925, abridged edition, 2000, ISBN 0-11-702412-0
• Davis, Mike, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World 2001, ISBN 1-85984-739-0
• Dutt, Romesh C. Open Letters to Lord Curzon on Famines and Land Assessments in India, first published 1900, 2005 edition by Adamant Media Corporation, Elibron Classics Series, ISBN 1-4021-5115-2
• Dutt, Romesh C. The Economic History of India under early British Rule, first published 1902, 2001 edition by Routledge, ISBN 0-415-24493-5
• Forbes, Rosita, India of the Princes', London, 1939
• Forrest, G. W., CIE, (editor), Selections from The State Papers of the Governors-General of India - Warren Hastings (2 vols), Blackwell's, Oxford, 1910
• James, Lawrence, Raj - The Making and Unmaking of British India, London, 1997, ISBN 0-316-64072-7
• Keay, John, The Honourable Company - A History of the English East India Company, HarperCollins, London, 1991, ISBN 0-00-217515-0
• Moorhouse, Geoffrey, India Britannica, Book Club Associates, UK, 1983
• Morris, Jan, with Simon Winchester, Stones of Empire - The Buildings of the Raj, Oxford University Press, 1st edition 1983 (paperback edition 1986, ISBN 0-19-282036-2
• Sen, Amartya, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlements and Deprivation, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982
• Srivastava, H.C., The History of Indian Famines from 1858-1918, Sri Ram Mehra and Co., Agra, 1968
• Voelcker, John Augustus, Report on the Improvement of Indian Agriculture, Indian Government publication, Calcutta, 2nd edition, 1897.
• Woodroffe, Sir John, Is India Civilized - Essays on Indian Culture, Madras, 1919.

Fiction

• Burnett, Frances Hodgeson, The Secret Garden
• Forster, E.M., A Passage to India
• Kipling, Rudyard:
  • Plain Tales from the Hills (1888, short stories)
  • The Phantom Rickshaw and other Eerie Tales (1888, short stories, containing Man Who Would Be King)
  • Departmental Ditties and Barrackroom Ballads (1890, poetry, containing Mandalay and Gunga Din)
  • The Jungle Book (1894, short stories)
  • The Second Jungle Book (1895, short stories)
  • Kim (1901, novel)
• Masters, John
  • The Deceivers (A novel about Thuggee).
  • Nightrunners of Bengal (The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857).
  • The Lotus and the Wind (The Great Game of British and Russian spies on the Northwest Frontier).
  • Bhowani Junction (Britain's exodus and the Partition of India).
• Orwell, George, Burmese Days
• Scott, Paul
  • Raj Quartet comprising of:
    • The Jewel in the Crown – (1966)
    • The Day of the Scorpion – (1968)
    • The Towers of Silence – (1971)
    • A Division of the Spoils – (1975)
  • Staying On – (1977)

External links

• British India Website
• The New Student's Reference Work/India (1914)
• Images of Empire Library, Bristol, UK
• October Offer regarding India’s constitution, of His Majesty's Government 18 October 1939
• August Offer regarding India’s constitution, of His Majesty's Government 8 August 1940
• British Ruled India (1757-1947) Bibliography of Books Articles and Dissertations Concentrating on 1914-1947

• British rule in India